Problem dual boot uefi on old toshiba satellite

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi,

I have an old L50-A Toshiaba Satellite with and ssd disk.
I have recently switched from Fedora to Opensuse Leap 15.4, I have also Windows 10 installed.
The installation went well, I just formatted old Fedora partitions except /home and /boot/efi

For my first boot, I got the grub shell, neither Opensuse not Windows booted, I used a chainloader to load the grub64.efi file of Opensuse to load the OS.
I tried to reinstall the bootloader via Yast but same problem.

Then I reinstalled Opensuse and this time I formatted /boot/efi partition, and this time it was worst, I got “no media present” and I had to use my installation media to be able to boot my system using the chainloader command.

Then I restored Windows bootloader and now my laptop boots only on Windows.

Searching the Internet I found that the implementation of uefi on toshiba satellite on old models was incomplete and favors Windows.

Could you help me with some work around to be able to boot both OSes?

Regards.

2

What happens if you strike the F12 key during POST? Do you get a boot menu? If yes, what selections does it contain?

If you enter UEFI BIOS setup, is there a main selection “boot” that lists boot priorities? If yes, what selections does it contain?

3

Hi,

No, the F12 does not show any entries, and worse the BIOS does not anything, just whether to use UEFI or Legacy.

By the way I noticed something, I have another machine on which I still have dual boot with Fedora. On the /boot/EFI partition I have this :
/boot/EFI/** Boot/
**
[INDENT=2]BOOTIA32.efi
fbia32.efi
fbx64.efi
bootx64.efi
[/INDENT]
** fedora/
**
[INDENT=2]fonts
grub.cfg
BOOTIA32.csv
BOOTX64.csv
gcdia32.efi
gcdx64.efi
grubia32.efi
grubx64.efi
mmia32.efi
mmx64.efi
shim.efi
shimia32.efi
shimx64.efi
[/INDENT]
Microsoft/

[INDENT=2]Boot/
[/INDENT]
[INDENT=3]kd_02_1969.dll
bg-BG
boot.stl
bootmgfw.efi
bootmgr.efi
…
Fonts
Resources
BCD[/INDENT]
[INDENT=2] Recovery/
[/INDENT]

But on my laptop I have only this :

/boot/EFI/Boot/
Microsoft/

[INDENT=2]Boot/
[/INDENT]
[INDENT=3]kd_02_1969.dll
bg-BG
boot.stl
bootmgfw.efi
bootmgr.efi
…
Fonts
Resources
BCD
[/INDENT]
[INDENT=2] Recovery/
[/INDENT]
** opensuse/
**
[INDENT=2]**grubx64.efi <------------------ only this file
**

[/INDENT]
Is this normal?? and could that be the problem?
If yes, how to correct that knowing that I tried to reinstall the bootloader without success.

Regards.

4

It isn’t normal, but it is good enough. It’s what you get if you turn off secure-boot support in the openSUSE installer Booting section. And, as long as secure-boot is disabled in your BIOS/firmware, that should be sufficient to boot.

I remember helping someone with Toshiba booting, perhaps 8-10 years ago. It was tricky. Maybe you can find that old thread.

As best I recall, the trick was to backup the microsoft boot file (“\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgr.efi”) and then copy the openSUSE boot file to replace it. However, you needed a copy of the microsoft file somewhere so that the boot menu could use that to boot Windows. It’s been a while, and what works might depend on the Toshiba model.

5

It’s normal here:

# grep BUTOR /etc/default/grub
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="opensusetw"
# tree /boot/efi/EFI
/boot/efi/EFI
├── BOOT
│   ├── BOOTX64.EFI	# 2021 ?
│   ├── fbx64.efi	# 2018 ?
│   ├── grubx64.efi	# 2018 opensusetw?
│   └── mt74x64.efi	# 2017 memtest86 7.4
├── debian
├── fedora
├── opensuse
├── opensusetw
│   └── grubx64.efi	# 2 Sept 2022
└── tubuntu

6 directories, 5 files

Currently, 13 operating systems are installed. All boot from TW’s /boot/grub2/custom.cfg, which due to /etc/grub.d/ customization, is incorporated in /boot/grub2/grub.cfg. Only TW has Grub installed. Those above listed as empty directories were installed to include Grub, which was later removed from, except for opensuse, which remains there from the original installation on the new disk/ESP, before /etc/default/grub could be changed.

None of my few Windows installations are on UEFI PCs. Based on nrickert’s recollection, I’d copy Windows’ directory to another name, and have Leap use the copy to chainload to from Grub for booting Windows, while copying Leap’s grubx64.efi over bootmgr.efi as bootmgr.efi in the original Windows directory to have Leap’s Grub appear when POST completes.